The July Winter of 2012
by Iron59
Summary: The story is simple: Frozen set in 2012! Starring the overly nerdy royal Facebook addict Anna, alongside her schizophrenic previously-homeless bodyguard Kristoff and his dog Sven who he is deluded is a reindeer. Also starring Elsa, a royal soccer-obsessed hipster honor student forced to live in America for ten years, and Hans, the only one of his brothers not made CEO by his dad.
1. Midnight

**Prologue - 2001, November 2**

* * *

The city was always asleep at midnight. And now that the seasons were on the edge of autumn and at the cusp of winter, the city was even more quiet. Throughout its roads and districts, old and new alike, the only lights that remained on were mostly traffic lights, and a scant few buildings and homes with people still awake at this time of the night.

On the western end of the city, right within a small island on the city's fjord, was a castle, although considering what year it was, functionally it was more of a palace. It too, like the rest of the city around it, was nearly completely devoid of light, save for some few windows maybe still having staff working within at this late hour, and also the lights around and outside it, at the very least illuminating the facade and the whole building in general.

At the gates of the castle walls were the following words engraved atop it: _Arendalslåttet._ Below it, engraved in English, was _Arendelle Castle._ This was the official residence of the monarchy of the Kingdom of Arendelle, a kingdom located in the coasts and fjords of western Norway. Roughly the size of Luxembourg, the country was divided into three parts: The metropolitan capital Arendelle City, a city the size of Manhattan; the massive mountain range that surrounded the city on all sides; and an archipelago the size of the Faroe Islands southeast off the country's coast, called the Southern Isles, which had a city named Weselton that was half the size of Arendelle City. _  
_

Within the castle walls, the current monarch Elias Lazarøssän (or King Elias in short, and King El among friends), was often hard at work. A businessman at heart, King Elias throughout his 18-year reign made it his duty to further his father Lazarøs Eliezersän's economic reforms and transform Arendelle from a small fishing-and-logging country into a veritable economic powerhouse in Europe based on tourism, banking, real estate, and oil. And not only did he make Arendelle incredibly rich, he had also managed to turn himself into one of the richest men in the world, owning numerous companies both national and private, and even monopolizing several of Arendellle's economic sectors for his own companies, to the point that his own personal net worth at $5 billion dollars was already 8% of Arendelle's entire economy.

However, right now, work was not on his mind. Sitting in his palace office with a laptop and a bottle of wine, insomnia had led him to get out of his room and head for his office, despite heavy eyes and a horrible headache, to investigate something that had bothered him for weeks.

Taking a sip of his wine, he opened his laptop and logged in to his currently locked account, and immediately pressed Chrome. On the screen was the Google logo and a search bar, along with his most frequented sites: his companies' websites, some government websites, his Facebook account, his Twitter account, his bank accounts, and Känglig Arendalsk FK's (his favorite football team) official site being among them.

He clicked the search bar and paused. He took another sip of his wine, and with a deep breath, began typing.

_magical powers in children_

As the page was loading, he took hold of one of his family pictures on the table, which was somewhat hard to see since Elias didn't bother opening his office's lights. There in the picture was the royal family in a photoshoot: himself, standing tall and with a big grin in full royal garb; his youngest daughter Anna, riding on his shoulders with the same big grin; his wife Maria, sitting primly on an elaborately designed chair; and their eldest daughter Elsa, sitting on her mother's lap with a book in her own lap, the two both merely smiling.

He held his gaze at Elsa. Being his first child, she had always commanded her father's attention, especially due to the fact that she will not only inherit the kingdom, but also all his companies and holdings. To this end he enrolled her in an elite private school and hired several of Arendelle's most expensive tutors for her. Quite luckily for him, even at her young age of eight, she was already a very hard-working and studious girl, consistently scoring high marks in school. Even more luckily, her favorite subject happened to be math, which could become very useful for her when she inherits all her father's businesses alongside the kingdom. Alongside that, she also happened to be very talented with drawing; though it was still far from expert-level skills, it was already far more complicated most children's artistic skills at her age.

But though at the surface she seemed to be a very well-raised child, there was something very different about Elsa. At first, the only unusual difference Elias noticed was the fact that she had blond hair, despite the fact that no one in his or his wife's family ever had blond hair in their lineage. As she was growing up, she started showing very peculiar traits. For one, her normal body temperature was consistently around 30 degrees Celsius, and yet she never exhibited any symptoms of hypothermia. She also seemed to be unbelievably resistant to cold; Elias had once saw her outside in the palace garden during winter in subzero temperatures wearing only a shirt and shorts. And not only that, her mere presence seemed to make her immediate surroundings colder, as though she was literally emanating coldness around her.

At first, it seemed something very unusual, but still innocuous. But one day, a few weeks ago, it turned into something that made Elias start to lose sleep from worry and fear.

_"Papa! Papa!" Elsa called out, hearing her father's footsteps at the hallways just right outside._

_"Sweetie, what is it?" Elias replied, his briefcase swinging in his hands._

_"Come here! Look what I can do!" she said excitedly. Right alongside her, Anna was giggling, though Elias did not know why._

_"I have work things to deal with, sweetie. Can I see it later?"_

_"Please? Come on, I showed to Anna too! You should see it, it's amazing! Pleeeeeease?" she said overdramatically. _

_"Oh, all right. But make it quick, okay? I'm kind of swamped in paperwork, so I don't have much time."_

_"It'll be quick, I promise you papa!" _

_And so Elias walked towards Elsa's room and went through the open door. But what he saw as he entered made him gasp in shock and almost drop his briefcase. _

_It was snowing inside the room, and the floor was covered in a layer of ice and snow, despite the fact that it was early November and winter hadn't come yet to Arendelle. The windows were covered with frost, and there seemed to be a chilly draft circulating by itself inside the room. And in the middle of the room, Elsa stood right beside her sitting, giggling younger sister, with her arms spread wide and frost bursting forth from her hands. _

_"Look, papa!" she giggled. "I can make snow from thin air!" _

_A bit too shocked by what he had just seen, Elias quickly exited the room and closed the door without a word, and started walking away with a disturbed look on his face._

_"Papa?" he heard Elsa's voice from within her room as he left._

At first Elias thought he was hallucinating, only for her to suddenly show it to her mother during dinnertime later that night by conjuring ice out of nowhere for their drinks, then later going back to her still-snowed-in room, confirming something that deeply disturbed Elias.

His daughter had supernatural abilities. Or in shorter terms, she had powers. Ice powers.

His daughter possessed magic. The magic to control and manipulate ice. The thought of it kept replaying in his mind: _my daughter possesses magic._

But there was something that posed a problem for Elias: he very much feared magic. Magical powers in people, though very rare was not something unheard of in the world. However, magical people have had a history of causing harm to come to those who are unmagical, mostly because they didn't know how to control it, but sometimes also due to malice.

Elias remembered the story of a man in Thailand who could breath fire; one day while attending a concert in a nightclub he accidentally set fire to the ceiling, leading to a blaze that killed 68 people, and he ended up serving prison time for involuntary manslaughter. Elias also remembered the story of a woman in Germany who could manipulate sound: she rode a rollercoaster one day and her screams were so loud that she deafened everyone riding along with her, and caused permanent hearing damage amongst almost everyone within a few hundred meters from the roller coaster.

Another story was one he experienced himself, just a few years ago, alongside his old friend, Prime Minister Winston Weselsän, who was then only the treasurer of Weselton. While they were skiing in Arendelle's mountains for fun, they encountered a Sami woman and her son, along with a Labrador, walking alone in the woods. Knowing that there were no Sami tribes in Arendelle, they immediately assumed she had illegally entered the country, and after introducing themselves ordered her to present her travel documents. Instead, the woman whispered something in her language to her son, then the son began waving his arms around their Labrador, causing it to grow in size until it was the size of a horse. The son then said something in his language to the dog, and the dog suddenly became angry at them and threatening to attack, causing the two to immediately flee.

What Elias feared about Elsa was that she had the potential to become very dangerous. He could already picture what her powers could cause. She could accidentally turn people into ice. She could accidentally or even intentionally harm people by making a weapon out of her ice. She could even probably affect the weather and cause an eternal winter. Elias was already picturing a few dozen manners in which Elsa could harm, injure, maim, ruin, or destroy things with her ice powers. He wasn't one to be overly fearful usually, but the possible dangers that Elsa could bring to the people around her, and perhaps even to the entire kingdom seeing as she was the heiress, made him very paranoid on what she could do, especially since she was still a child that had just discovered her ability to do such. Did she know how to fully control it?

Due to his fear of magic, all he could picture was what harm could come out of it. In his mind, he surrendered to the belief: Elsa was dangerous. Very dangerous. But as her father, it would have to be his responsibility to help her learn how to control it, lest it goes out of control.

She _was _the heiress. She couldn't possibly inherit the kingdom without posing a danger to everyone, unless she learned how to control her magic. But how?

He started opening several tabs from the search results Google gave him. Ten minutes and three pages worth of Googling later, he had found nothing but news articles on various children manifesting magical powers, some from scientific websites attempting research on why children manifest such. There was a toddler in China with superhuman strength, being researched upon. There was a homeless girl in Argentina captured on video teleporting around in an alley, though out of control. A teenage marathon runner from Romania was receiving controversy due to his inability to become tired even at full speed. There was a Syrian child soldier being interviewed, apparently being forced to fight due to his inability to be harmed by guns, explosives, blades, and possibly every weapon you could possibly attack him with.

There were apparently no websites talking about how to raise a child with such abilities, only news articles, videos, and blogs. The only thing he saw that interested him was a local news report on an impoverished illegal settlement in the mountains of north Arendelle, where apparently Arendellians with magical abilities have been moving or fleeing to escape persecution and have a community to themselves. Apparently, their said-to-be leader, only known by the name of Avgust Pavlov, declared that non-magical people are not allowed from entering the settlement, which led to them having violent encounters with police that try to evict them for illegal squatting.

_How come no one has reported this to me yet? _Elias thought. He made a mental note to go visit it, in order to find out how he could possibly deal with it, and maybe be able to come to them for any emergency help.

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in," Elias said. The door opened, and in went his wife, Queen Maria, still dressed in her nightgown.

"Couldn't you sleep?" she asked as she yawned.

"Well, couldn't you, too?" Elias asked back, with Maria replying with a slight smirk and a nod.

"So, what have you been doing?"

Elias kept clicking away into various more websites on magical powers. "Nothing, just browsing to make me fall asleep. You?"

"Winston just left, saw his car out the driveway. Awful lot of paperwork in parliament, and for some reason he decided to finish it all today. Can't blame him, though, everyone in this palace has a massive load of work," Maria said as she picked up a chair and sat by Elias' desk.

"Speaking of Winston, how's his son, Hans? I heard it was his birthday next week?"

"Was it? He's like the youngest child out of seven. Winston's a close friend, but I can't really remember all his son's birthdays, can I?" Maria raised an eyebrow.

"Well, I suppose you're right. What about the kids, did you check on them?"

"...no. Then again, the clock says 23:27. That is _way _past their bedtime. Trust me, Elsa and Anna are asleep."

* * *

Perhaps the only thing still kept the city - in a manner - still awake, was the bright aurora in the sky. Like green fire from the heavens, it kept the sky alive, even as everyone slept right through it, too busy trying to find escape from work and from the increasingly cold weather to bother going out enjoying the view at this incredibly early hour. And so the aurora shone alone, majestic even as it remained ignored by a populace that - since they lived very far up north - didn't really find it an important thing to bother with.

Except for a little girl sitting by her window wide awake way past her bedtime. Little Anna, a hyperactive, overly curious redheaded little girl, was staring at the aurora with an awestruck look on her face. Being young, she held a great wonder of everything around her, like how big Arendelle seemed to her, how big and awesome Arendelle Castle was, how beautiful the stars and the auroras in the sky were to her...

And most importantly, how Elsa could do her magic. Anna held a massive admiration of her older sister, believing her to be the smartest, prettiest, and most all-around awesome big sis in the world. When Elsa discovered her ice powers a few weeks ago, they immediately began to use it to play as often as they could, especially after Elsa came home from school, furthering Anna's belief that Elsa was the best sister ever.

And so, regardless of what time it was, Anna decided that she wanted to play with Elsa right now. So she got up, and started walking to her older sister's bed.

"Elsa! Psst!" she whispered loudly. "Elsa, psst!"

Anna then climbed unto the bed and got on top of her sister, and began to ride her.

"Wake up, wake up, wake up!"

"Anna, go back to sleep," Elsa grumbled awake.

Anna replied by rolling over and landing spread-eagled on top of her, and Elsa gasped for breath for a second.

"I just can't." Anna said overdramatically. "The sky's awake, so I'm awake, so we have to play!"

Elsa pushed Anna off. "Go play by yourself," she said as Anna landed right back unto the floor with a muffled thud.

First Anna sighed, right before an idea suddenly gets to her. Hopping back onto the bed and manually opening one of Elsa's shut eyelids, she then said, with a mischievous smirk:

"Do you want to build a snowman?"

* * *

_A/N: I was going back and forth for almost a month trying to think up of fics that involved a modern version of Arendelle, until one day I decided to just cut out the middleman and directly set the events of Frozen in the modern era. And so, I've ended up with this. Please review, critique, ignore the fact that my prologue is the length of a normal chapter, and tell your friends about this fic, alright? :)_

_And also, can anyone be a beta reader for me? Please? _


	2. Child's Play

**Chapter 1 - 2001, November 2**

* * *

The little girls' footsteps echoed throughout the lightless castle as they made their way down to the ballroom, hand in hand. Anna was excitedly dragging along her older sister as she ran, barely able to contain her giggles and not wake up their parents or anyone else in the castle

"Come on, come on, come on," Anna excitedly repeated, to which Elsa kept replying with shushes but to no avail.

Soon they made it to the ballroom's door and barged it open, running into the expansive room laughing almost out loud in their excitement. After Elsa shut the door closed, Anna continued to hold on to Elsa's hand as they ran to the middle of the room, very eager to see one of her favorite things in the world: her sister's magic.

"Do the magic, do the magic!"

And with a smile and without a word, Elsa began to wave her arms around, causing frost to start forming and circling until they had formed a little snowball levitating above Elsa's hands, as Anna stared in great awe.

"Ready?" Elsa asked, getting an eager nod back from her sister.

With that, she then spread her arms wide into the air, causing the snowball to fly up to the ceiling, and explode into a bright cloud of snow that began falling around in the room.

Elsa watched with a big grin on her face as Anna danced around with joyful squeals, her arms spread up in the air hoping to catch the snow. "This is amazing!" she shouted out, regardless of the danger of someone hearing them and finding out that they were still awake.

* * *

"Hmm?" Maria said.

"What hmm? I didn't say a thing." Elias replied.

"No, uh...I mean, did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Shush."

Elias then stopped his rapid typing for a moment and began listening intently, despite the fact that he was pretty sure no one else was awake.

"I don't hear a thing." Elias said.

"Just keep quiet, we might hear it again."

They then did so for another moment, sitting there staring at nothing for at least five seconds more until suddenly, they heard the faint sound of solidifying ice, followed by 20 seconds of faint high-pitched giggling and laughing.

"Elsa." Elias only said before he stood up.

"Hey, about Elsa..." Maria said as she then stood up too, as Elias began to leave the room. "About her...magic, have you found anything curious that could help us about it?"

"Hmm? Well, actually, that was kind of the reason why I went here at this time of night. Besides, when you have bad insomnia, it's one way to use up time." Elias said as he opened the door.

"Figures. But _did _you find anything?" Maria then asked as they both exited the room.

"Well, there was this illegal settlement in north Arendelle. Have you heard of the news about it? Honestly, I just found out about it moments ago. Of all the happenings in this kingdom, I'm kind of surprised I didn't find out about it sooner." Elias said, his voice echoing in the hallways.

"Oh, that? It's been kind of in the news for three days already. It's a shantytown for magical people, and apparently their leader is some old man from Russia, and they've been into...well, fights with the police."

"A shantytown, you say? Wow, I never knew Arendelle was a third world country." Elias chuckled.

"Pfft." Maria said as they made their way down the stairs.

_"Hi, I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs!" _the faint voice of Elsa then echoed up the stairway as they were going down.

"I...ah...what?" Elias then said.

_"I wuv you Olaf!" the faint voice of Anna followed._

Elias stared at his wife with a confused look on his face. Maria, not knowing what to say, simply shrugged her arms, and they continued climbing down. As they slowly walked their way down from the topmost floor where they came from, more giggles and laughs from Anna and Elsa began to echo around in the corridors, all the way to the fifth floor where they currently were right now.

After about two minutes later of walking down, they finally made it down to the bottom floor, only for Maria to suddenly stop before they headed to the ballroom where the girls seemed to be playing in.

"Hey, why don't we just get a drink first? It's midnight, and I'm thirsty," she said as she stretched her arms out, yawning.

Elias took five seconds to reply, "Alright."

* * *

It were times like these that Elsa felt her powers, strange as they were, were truly a gift, and that there's no more better way of using it other than to make people happy, especially her little sister Anna. There Anna was at a corner of the ballroom, still dancing along with Olaf the inanimate snowman while Elsa was busy making a big snow slide for them to start sliding down upon.

Since the floor was completely covered in ice, Anna began skidding on the ice in Elsa's direction while still in Olaf's arms, who was sliding along with her. Giggling as she slid past Elsa into another corner of the room, she made a funny face as she said "Wheeeeee!"

Elsa chuckled as she watched Anna slide out of control into a wall at a comically slow speed, causing her to fall over and making Olaf tumble and crumble into snowman pieces.

"Hey, Anna, come on! Let's go slide down this one!" Elsa called out as she finished her slide, and quickly made a cushioning pile of snow at the end. Anna quickly began running towards Elsa, and Elsa quickly made a crude stair for them to climb on top of the slide.

"Come on!" Anna said, very much in a hurry as she began climbing up. Elsa followed after a short while.

When they made it to the top, Elsa then sat at the very beginning of the slide, and took Anna's hand. "Come on, sit on my lap, then let's slide down!"

Without a word, Anna cannonballed herself into Elsa's lap, causing Elsa to gasp just for a moment.

"Alright then, you ready?"

"Yeah!"

And with a slight push, the two began sliding quickly down the ten-foot slide, with Anna's loud "WHEE!" echoing all over the ballroom.

* * *

_"WHEEEEEE!" _Anna's voice could be heard in the pantry.

Elias and Maria, with a glass of water in their hands, stared at each other, before Elias began shaking his head.

* * *

When Anna and Elsa made it to the bottom of the slide, Anna jumped and flew off, landing back-first into the cushion that Elsa made. Almost immediately, Anna began jumping around, to which Elsa began conjuring piles of snow that would catch her as Anna jumped. "Hang on!" Elsa called out as Anna continued jumping, higher and higher and higher until it became even taller than the slide.

"Catch me!"

Elsa kept making the piles of snow. It really were times like these that she felt the happiest. Ever since she was born, she had been told that she was born...different. She never felt hot nor cold. People literally felt cold around her, and her skin was chilly to the touch, no matter how hot it got wherever she was. She was told she was unusual. But why?

Little did she know how it would soon end up becoming a full blown ability to manipulate snow and ice. It started innocently enough at first. A few months ago during summer, she was locked up in her room doing nothing but reading her upcoming school-year's books. No one was around. Elias was traveling to Oslo for two days to discuss a trade agreement with Norway. Maria was busy organizing and managing all of Elias' paperwork and scheduling, being essentially her husband's secretary. Anna was all the way downstairs at the kitchen, too busy begging chocolate from the chefs to do anything else. And Elsa felt that it was too hot in her room.

So she thought _I wish it snowed in my room_, and as a joke, she closed her eyes and started thinking really hard, _please let it snow in my room._

When she opened her eyes, she could only gasp in shock when she saw the snow begin to fall from the ceiling and unto her head and her book, just like magic.

Later she showed this to Anna, who then immediately insisted that they use it to play. And so secretly, they began playing in their room with the snow that Elsa conjured. She started discovering that she could make snow come out from any of her body parts, though usually it came from her hands. She found out she could cover the floor in a layer of ice. She could make crude structures out of snow. Anna was often greatly amused by all the things that she would ask Elsa to make, like a snow castle or a snow version of themselves.

But though Elsa's control of her powers was still not refined enough, she was slowly learning how to control her powers through their play. She somewhat knew how to make the snow go away when they were done, but sometimes, the snow and ice she made just didn't disappear until it melted, leaving their room often wet.

But then one day she showed it to her father, who very much did not approve at all. She still remembered their conversation in his office, the day after she showed to him her powers in her room.

_"Elsa. That is dangerous." Elias said very sternly._

_"But we were just playing!" Elsa replied._

_"I'm telling you, Elsa. You're a child. And now, you've...you've got magic. You don't know how to control it yet. What if somehow you accidentally end up hurting Anna with your powers?" Elias added, intimidating Elsa._

_"B-but...how could I even do that?"_

_"At the very least, you might get her sick from the cold. But if it goes out of control, what if you, say, accidentally cause Anna to freeze to death? Or...or...or what if accidentally turn her into ice? Or just directly hit her with a blast of frost, or a sharp icicle?"_

_Elsa was cowering in fear of her father._

_"You don't know what might accidentally happen when you use your powers. Don't use it."_

_"I-I won't, papa."_

_"And if other people find out about this...yyou're the one who's going to inherit the kingdom. You might even harm other people. What if you accidentally make a blizzard instead of just causing snow? And what if say, you don't know how to make it go away?"_

_"I-I won't do that."_

_"You shouldn't. Listen to me. Don't use it. Do you understand me?" _

When she later told Anna about what happened, they instead mischievously agreed to do it behind their backs. And so their every-other-midnight ritual of going to the ballroom and playing in the snow began, although sometimes Elsa was too sleepy to get off her bed and go with Anna. Their playing had already got them in trouble once when they were caught by their mother playing, with Elias then finding out and lecturing Elsa yet again on the dangers of this kind of play.

But here she was yet again, playing secretly in the ballroom while Elias and Maria slept (or so she thought). Elsa thought, it made the two of them happy, and they weren't really in danger, so why was her father so hard on her?

Anna kept jumping up and Elsa continued catching her with increasingly taller piles of snow. "Again!" she said, almost fifteen feet in the air now, not far from the ceiling.

It was getting too high for Elsa. "Anna!" she cried out, only to be drowned out by repeated "woohoo!"s. "Slow down!" she said, trying to inch forward as she cast, trying to make sure she could make the platform catch Anna right.

But then she slipped.

Anna jumped off the final pile into an eighteen-feet drop.

"Anna!" she said as she extended an arm, accidentally causing a poweful blast of frost to burst from her hands and hit Anna right in the face.

Anna tumbled right down unto the snow slide, completely unconscious. A distraught Elsa was left to start shaking in fear and guilt of what she had just done.

"A-Anna?"

* * *

"Let's go?" Elias asked Maria, who had just finished her cup of water and put it right back down on the counter.

"What in God's name are Elsa and Anna doing anyway?" Maria then said.

"I've already told her to stop playing with her ice powers. She's not listening at all." Elias said with a grumble.

"Well, it's just playing." Maria raised an eyebrow. "What's the harm in them just playing around, except with snow powers?"

_"MAMA! PAPA!" _Elsa's screams suddenly filled the pantry.

Elias's heart skipped a beat while Maria suddenly gasped in surprise.

Without another word, they quickly ran out the pantry and straight towards the ballroom. When they finally got to the door, it was already being covered with frost. Elias tried to open the door, but it remained shut.

"ELSA!" Elias shouted out as he then rammed the door with his shoulder to no avail. "Maria, help me with this."

The two then rammed the door together, and the door finally gave way, to reveal a crying Elsa holding an unconscious Anna in her arms. Elsa looked at them with a look of sheer terror.

"Elsa...what have you done?" Elias said harshly. "This is getting out of hand!"

"I-i-it was an accident!" Elsa could only stammer as her parents ran to Anna's safety. "I-I'm sorry, Anna..."

Maria picked Anna up from Elsa's arms, breathing incredibly fast from worry. "She's ice cold."

Elias looked at Elsa with an angry look on his face, and quickly took a firm hold of her arm. _"What did I tell you?" _he whispered angrily, making Elsa cower in fear. Turning to Maria, he then said,

"Maria, get the keys to any of our cars. Quick. I know where we have to go."


End file.
